What do you do to give your generals good traits?

M2TW has loads of traits and ancillaries, with complicated triggers. But I wonder if it would be useful to have a simple thread just saying what people do in practical terms to develop their characters?

I know some people have studied the files and can contribute a lot. Unfortunately, I am not one of them but here's the few things I do with a view to developing my generals:

(1) Fight battles - well, d'oh. But it seems the key to developing a good general is winning a lot of battles.

(2) Choose whether to go for dread or chivalry; release prisoners/occupy to get chivalry; execute/exterminate to get dread.

(3) For a chivalrous general, avoid getting too stuck in to the first few battles, for fear of the "battle dread" trait. Also avoid chasing routers too much. Once you pick up the "chivalrous in battle" trait, you are safe (are you?).

(4) Set taxes to high. This used to be optimal for good traits in RTW - is it still true in M2TW?

(5) Go on successful crusades to get nice boosts to piety and chivalry.

(6) Be present in a settlement when a religious building is completed. This seems to give a decent chance of a piety rise.

(7) For a chivalrous King, refrain from using spies or assassins. (For a dreadful king, do the opposite).

(8) Give "unappreciated" generals something to do. Fight rebels or just move around, not stay in a settlement.

(9) What I don't do, but will do after reading a recent post of Dopp, is avoid putting a general in a town-type settlement (not a castle-type) without a market-type building. Otherwise there is a 100% chance of getting "bad trader".

And that's about it. I am sure I am missing a lot of tricks. Would other people care to share their strategies? I don't want a cut and paste of the traits files. But just the practical tips people think important enough to be worth bothering with. Nurturing your generals is probably only a small part of the game, but seems like something it is worth looking into after you've gotten used to the basics of the campaign.

To get good trait for my generals, I send them on crusades, fight in hard battles and try to do as many epic battles as possible with heirs and favoured family members, otherwise I don't really bother.

Guide to Getting a Great General:

- Good Breeding. (having good Kings (highest possible command piety and chivalry or dread) and high as possible charm wives)
- As soon as he comes of age, send him on a rather challenging battle to make a man of him, if he survives, will give him a good command boost.
- Send him on a crusade and make sure he is the one that finishes it!
- Now you have a very decent general, send him on some rather tough assignments but make sure he has kids of his own.
- When next son comes of age, start the process all over again.

This is all I've really done and in the later part of a game I've gotten great results with this.

The best trait you can get for command from come of age, is Born Conqueror with +4 command.

Sometimes there's just nothing you can do to help a general. Take my latest faction heir for example: 10 stars, 5 Chivalry and Admires Technology. Nice, eh?

Now check this out: he also is an Awkward Speaker, Introverted, Shameful *and* has a Foreign Fruitcake in his retinue.

Makes me cry... if it weren't for his 5 chivalry, his armies would flee every time he'd fight a battle, despite the fact that he's a tactical genius.

Pretty much what you said.
Vh taxes are fine though as long as you have a low enough treasury at end of turn. At a certain threshold, high and vh taxes will give you strategydread.
You get strategychivalry from having low taxes when your treasury is low (and of course badtaxman)
Moving chars around doesn't give them appreciation traits. Fighting and parking them in high level settlements do.
Park chars inside towns/castles with academic structures. Those give a lot of nice boosts.
Have a (chivalrous) char in town when you complete religious buildings or train priests (avoid if dreadful), avoid having one in (in case you are chivalrous) when you train spies/assassins.
Use a diplomat/princess as much as you can even if its just to do simple pointless agreements (gifts do not count). That gives you politicsskill and deceiver virtue.
Fight enemies of another religion if you want to become chivalrous in battle.
extermination has a good chance of getting you the torturer ancillary which is great.
despoiling territory or sacking settlements gives you the despoiler trait.
Build excessive siege equipment even if you do not need it to get the goodsiegeengineer trait and avoid the badsiegeengineer trait.

I know just exactly how to get Dreadful commander, If you have princess marry her to someone Actively Disloyal (still having at least 1 loyalty) and he will stay in your side if your king is worthy (enough Authority)
Then pillage Exterminate settlements, if you have enough big cities in home front its good idea to have some that have less population. If you Execute prisoners enough, you get Disrecpects Prisoners (+1 Dread) and if you exterminate enough settlements or 1 enough big (huge) you can gain Brutal Conqueror (+1Dread +10% money from looting) But putting evil people to control big cities (gone over 24000) is bad idea, if you can´t keep loyalty up with High Taxes without good governor because they are likely to get -law traits and Ancillaries (Harsh Judge, Swift to Judge)
Having someone pretty fresh (not filled with dozens of traits and Ancillaries) is good idea to put in command of your Capital, I got Treasurer and Money counter this way (total around +15% to trade and taxes if i remember correctly) And treasurer is transferrable, and then send governor back to get the trait again, you have change to gain them both if you have governor in capital and you are considered really rich, got mine while over 40 000 Florins.

well, combat related traits are quite a common knowlegde, what about other traits, I don't understand how do my generals suddenly got bastion of health or dellusion of illness or even some more weird traits like glorious fool etc?

There is currently no trigger for glorious fool, so its only in the trait file.
HaleAndHearty/Hypochondriac you get mainly at birth, then from spending time in places with baths or out in the wilderness.

In 1.2 religion is exceptionally useful for staving off bad trait lines - religious buildings grant prim and proper traits while you're in town with them, which cancel a slew of things that are dangerous to governors, and are not bad themselves either. Building religious buildings grants piety and can give chivalry, so its best to eject any dreadful guys from settlements before completing those buildings. I don't think they get churched up in chivalry from being in settlements with churches though, just the morality traits, which are decidedly helpful to either sort of general, so after churches are built it should be largely safe to return dread guys there.

If you intend a guy to be an attacker in any sense of the word, you will want him down the dread path, which if you are unforgiving in battle he will usually start down. The reason is dread is better on attacking generals, and also that it's infinitely easier for them to get than chivalry. Dread on the battlefield comes from attacking w/ favorable odds, from ensuring high death tolls for the enemy (chasing routers is a must), from exterminating captured settlements, and from executing prisoners. You can also gain helpful dread traits from making your BG unit a killing machine on the battlefield so your general gains things like bloodthirsty and battlescar type traits.

OTOH, chivalry is difficult to get on a field general. Generally required are the opposite things than dread requires: defensive battles that are stacked against you, primarily. Bad odds are most important, though defensive posture is often along with it. Letting a fleeing enemy escape helps (chain routing is about the only way to win with the required low death tolls), and of course occupying settlements and releasing prisoners.

Should you find a general in a situation where he shouldn't make the choice that helps his chivalry/dread, usually the middle choice is best: sack or ransom. You avoid the bad thing you don't want to do (often extermination b/c it's a horrible setback, but releasing boatloads of troops comes up some too) and may get good benefits too. Likewise if you find a general in a battle that's the wrong situation (a chivalrous one on a favorable attack, or a dreadful one on an unfavorable defense) it's best to try to navigate the battle avoiding the other trait line's goals, and just score what points you can in the post-battle decisions about prisoners and settlements. I know it seems obvious, but it's easy to forget, especially if you don't know which one the general in the battle is. Be sure to check and note his chivalry/dread disposition before you enter a battle, as it's impossible to find out during it or in the aftermath decisions AFAIK (if that's not true, someone PLEASE tell me, this "feature" is absolutely killing me in an annoyance kind of way).

There are some things that help for both chivalrous and dreadful field generals. If your general makes 9+ kills in a battle, he has a chance to advance his career, whether he's chivalrous or dreadful. If he is neither, he gets a chance to go either way. To score much chivalry or dread on the battlefield, your general is invariably required to have fought in the battle, so it's a good practice to get into.

For governing, since no one has mentioned it yet, happy buildings and culture are to be avoided, they bring lots of bad trait lines with them. Build them where you do not wish to use a governor, and make sure none ever park there. Religion buildings and the Town Hall series OTOH grant very useful governor traits and have useful effects of their own. Chivalry is also the in thing for governors, since it grants good PO and additionally adds growth. Luckily, it's also far easier to get as a governor than dread is. Low taxes help gain chivalry (but also give bad tax man), as does religious involvement (building churches and priests).

I feel sure I've missed some things... but that should be enough for anyone to digest for now :beam: